Little Port var. minima corky 'Lilliput' whole tree cutting root repair???

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Here this was the little fella in a pot by the incomparable Sonny Boggs 11/03/2024. I didn't like the angle and when I looked at the bottom, I thought I saw rot...

 

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So... I went a little radical. You can't tell but it's cut slightly at an angle to correct the annoying slant. As you can see there was no rot. It had sealed off inside and it was just bark flaking off. I did not let it dry. Instead I used talc hormone. That Pick with the powder on has the cutting sitting in a Sam Miller pot.

 

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I then stuck it in a little basket from the dollar store with a bunch of holes in the bottom and the big side holes covered with drywall adhesive tape. This mix is mostly ~1/4 pumice with a little black lava to hold some water in the soil. It's been in this little basket since. No trimming or anything since 11/03/2024. This particular variety is a bit of a weeper as well as getting pretty corky. Not as much as 'Frank' but it gets cork much faster. Getting ready to give it a hair cut and at least lift it. and check to see what happened with the roots. The idea was a hope to get kind of a radial spread. I have not checked so I'll let you know what I find.

 

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Here's the results. Outside of this one fat root that I removed, the rest of the roots were fairly fine and exited the trunk in a nice radial pattern so experimental success.

 

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Back in the basket for awhile to thicken the roots coming out of the trunk. The goal is the have nebari an a port... You can't really see it but the taper is coming along nicely... You can see the amount that came off.